A Very Personal Shoot

bdcolen

When my photographer son was getting married two years ago he first figured he'd save on a photographer, as at least 20 of the guests were photographers. But then he came to his senses and realized they'd all be, uh, unsteady in short order. 'So, Dad, do you think you could get a few shots?' he asked, explaining that he'd have his photographer friend Sean Keenan do the formals. Of course I agreed, being only too happy to have something to do at any event where noise makes it impossible for me to carry on conversations - I am 'hearing impaired' - and where everyone would be, uh, unsteady. So...Here's a personal look at "My Son's Wedding:"











And more here

torags

Great family shots BD

What happened the the Light/head of the girl in the background of #5?, it's like merged

Rags

bdcolen

torags wrote:

Great family shots BD

What happened the the Light/head of the girl in the background of #5?, it's like merged

Rags

Combination of low shutter speed and intentional camera movement. Once the partying starts at weddings I usually drop my shutter speed to between an 1/8th and a 1/15th of a second, and give my camera a quick twist up or down on its horizontal access when I shoot. Sometimes it looks a bit weird - as in this shot. Other times it doesn't - at least I like it, and I find clients do as well...









While it undoubtedly costs me some shots, given the number I take I find that I can afford the blown ones and what I end up with is photos of the partying that really capture the fun, the movement, the frenzy if you will. At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

jvgphoto

bdcolen wrote:

Combination of low shutter speed and intentional camera movement. Once the partying starts at weddings I usually drop my shutter speed to between an 1/8th and a 1/15th of a second, and give my camera a quick twist up or down on its horizontal access when I shoot. Sometimes it looks a bit weird - as in this shot. Other times it doesn't - at least I like it, and I find clients do as well...









While it undoubtedly costs me some shots, given the number I take I find that I can afford the blown ones and what I end up with is photos of the partying that really capture the fun, the movement, the frenzy if you will. At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I love these shots - thanks for sharing. Love especially that you're here and available for us all to learn from!

Cheers,
Jon

rutt

I love this one:



Couple this technique with the mandatory drinking shots and you've really got something.





(Apologies to BD. I stole this shot of his and blurred it.)

Zerodog

I love the blur effect. I need to try that. I bet it takes a bit of practice. And I need to just try slowing down the shutter speed period and getting some motion in my shots. It really gives a feeling. Instead of capturing every detail.

rutt

Zerodog wrote:

I love the blur effect. I need to try that. I bet it takes a bit of practice. And I need to just try slowing down the shutter speed period and getting some motion in my shots. It really gives a feeling. Instead of capturing every detail.

What I did here was a really quick effort. I think with a little work, it should be really easy to do this in post. (But would it be capturing reality?)

Tim Kamppinen

rutt wrote:

What I did here was a really quick effort. I think with a little work, it should be really easy to do this in post. (But would it be capturing reality?)

Well, it's easier to do it in camera, and IMO the results are more interesting. You could also try zooming or even moving the camera forward or backward if you were using a prime lens. This also produces cool results, but with a different look than rotational motion.

rutt

Tim Kamppinen wrote:

Well, it's easier to do it in camera, and IMO the results are more interesting. You could also try zooming or even moving the camera forward or backward if you were using a prime lens. This also produces cool results, but with a different look than rotational motion.

Yes, I agree that my attempt above wasn't as interesting as BD's in camera shots. But I also believe that with a little work, I could come up with a post technique that would get results just as interesting as BD got. Probably I'd use more than one kind of blur and blend somehow. There really is nothing special about shaking the camera except that it captures reality in some metaphysical way that the post treatment does not.

Once I liked the technique I could can it with a PS action and it would be every bit as easy as shaking the camera and allow a lot more control.

ian408

I like to combine slow shutter with rear curtain flash. The sense of motion these shots convey is nice.

Zerodog

rutt wrote:

What I did here was a really quick effort. I think with a little work, it should be really easy to do this in post. (But would it be capturing reality?)

I don't mean the PP effects. I meant the camera twist effect. I like it!

rutt

Zerodog wrote:

I don't mean the PP effects. I meant the camera twist effect. I like it!

Yeah, me too. Really a lot. I don't think I have done as well in post. I just think it could be done. That's my only point. (Just to be 100% clear.)

Tim Kamppinen

rutt wrote:

Yes, I agree that my attempt above wasn't as interesting as BD's in camera shots. But I also believe that with a little work, I could come up with a post technique that would get results just as interesting as BD got. Probably I'd use more than one kind of blur and blend somehow. There really is nothing special about shaking the camera except that it captures reality in some metaphysical way that the post treatment does not.

Once I liked the technique I could can it with a PS action and it would be every bit as easy as shaking the camera and allow a lot more control.

Well if you do it in camera you can get any kind of squiggly lines and motion that you want, depending on how you jerk, twist, spin, zoom, etc. the camera. To get those sorts of unique results would take a lot more work in post than just applying radial and zoom blur filters. Not that there's anything wrong with that, and I'm sure you could get some cool results... but isn't there something to be said for just plain old having fun with your camera? It's sort of how I like to shoot with my lensbaby just because it's fascinating to see the results as they appear, whereas the time or two where I tried to do similar effects in PP were joyless drudgery. Of course, YMMV.

torags

The twist works in BDs shots, it does convey a sense of party calamity.

I wonder; if using sports shooter discipline on city street shots would render interesting images.

For example: Set cam to continuous high (6-8fps), f2.8, SS 800-1000, let cam pick focus point, go to a bus station or other assembly area and press shutter and pan the crowd. Pick thru the series as you would getting an apex with multiple riders. Hmmm I wonder...

Hey Ian, do you have any examples of rear curtain flash that you could post?

rutt

Tim Kamppinen wrote:

Well if you do it in camera you can get any kind of squiggly lines and motion that you want, depending on how you jerk, twist, spin, zoom, etc. the camera. To get those sorts of unique results would take a lot more work in post than just applying radial and zoom blur filters. Not that there's anything wrong with that, and I'm sure you could get some cool results... but isn't there something to be said for just plain old having fun with your camera? It's sort of how I like to shoot with my lensbaby just because it's fascinating to see the results as they appear, whereas the time or two where I tried to do similar effects in PP were joyless drudgery. Of course, YMMV.

Once again, I agree. As I said originally, there is the "capture reality" aspect to doing it in camera. But it's also fun (for me at least) to play in post. I agree about the squiggly lines &etc. It will be an interesting challenge to get this in post and can it so it can be resued easily.

To each his own.

bdcolen

rutt wrote:

To each his own.

Indeed.